1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to communication systems and methods. More particularly, this invention relates to method and devices for detecting path faults in a telephone network.
2. Description of Related Art
In the past, to test a telephone network, technicians used test systems that were connected to the telephone network. The technicians established a telephone communication link between two of those test systems and controlled them to send test signals over the telephone network. The reception quality of the signals was then determined and path faults were detected based on the reception quality. However, such a testing process is very time-consuming and costly. Therefore, there is a need for automatic and semi-automatic detection of path faults in a network.
According to exemplary embodiments of the invention, for testing a network, a connection is established over the network and signals are sent over the connection. If the signals are not correctly received through the connection, the connection is maintained and a message is sent to a monitoring station indicating that a defective connection has been detected.
These and other features and advantages of this invention are described in or are apparent from the following detailed description of the path fault detection system and method according to exemplary embodiments of this invention.